Teaser

In time, all things must die. People, planets, stars. Even the universe itself. For in the great struggle of existence, not even the might Xeelee will emerge triumphant . . .

Review

This review brings my read of Xeelee: An Omnibus to an end. As before, Ring is another standalone within the larger future history. That being said, I’d recommend reading at least Timelike Infinity beforehand, as it provides a lot of useful context, and also introduces a key character.

I love stories that take place over long periods of time. I can track that back to Asimov’s Foundation, which set the standard for what I expect in science fiction. Baxter’s inspiration was more likely Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men, but the end result is a story that plays out not merely across generations, but across millennia. Ring starts in the fairly near future, and ends with the heat death of the universe. That’s not a spoiler, by the way, it’s just the premise of the novel.

There are characters in this story. There’s Leiserl, a genetically engineered woman who dedicates her impossibly long life to studying the dying sun. There’s Garry Uvarov, who runs an ethically dubious experiment on what is left of humanity. There is Michael Poole, still living with the consequences of his decisions in a prior book. There are countless little people swept along on the tide of time. In the end, though, none of them matter. Humans are inescapably powerless in the face of the universe. Try as we might, there is little we can do but bear witness.

If that all sounds a bit depressing, I understand. This is quite a bleak novel. Death of the universe and all that jazz. yet it doesn’t revel in misery. It takes pains to point out the beauty along the way. Even the destruction of stars can be a wondrous thing. There is no way to save the universe, but perhaps there is a way to escape its limitations. And simply because life as we know it is at an end, that does not mean something else won’t take its place.

There are more Xeelee novels. Sub-series and short story collections set in the same universe. Even the end of everything is not the final end. Yet this is a capstone for the opening act of the series, and a milestone for Baxter’s career as an author. Xeelee: An Omnibus could be rough in places, but overall it’s a statement of intent. A promise that Baxter is here to stay, and that his ideas and clarity of vision are as grand as anything science fiction has produced before or since.

Book Stats

• A Novel of the Xeelee Universe
• First Published in 1994